1931 Frankenstein....

You know, If anyone is in the Los Angeles area, there's a free screening (in 35mm) of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN at the UCLA Billy Wilder Theater this Monday, September 27. There's more information to be found here.

The only one of these old Universal films that I've seen since I was old enough to remember is, weirdly, SPANISH DRACULA. It was the bottom half of a long double bill when I saw it, though, so I was pretty tired and unenthusiastic by the end. I definitely saw FRANKENSTEIN as a kid, but I can't remember a thing about it.

I love those old movies, they are great. I haven't watched them since I was a kid, but I do have to admit they are not easy to watch sometimes. They are clasic for a reason, but I prefer my blood and guts movies. I grew up with Jason; Freddy and Mike, but I have a ton of respect for those older movies. It's not their fault visual effects sucked back then.

Ironically, her real name is Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg, and she adopted the "Jane Seymour" stage name (after the third wife of Henry VIII, I assume) because she thought Frankenberg sounded too much like Frankenstein. And then, five years later, she was acting in a Frankenstein story!

In the 2-disc version I have there's a documentary about the horror movies of Universal. One film mentioned (I think it was a silent film) was something called The Laughing Man or something like that. This man is disfigured since childhood with a permanent grin on his face. But what really struck me every time I looked at him was that he was a dead ringer for the Joker in Batman. I couldn't help but wonder if by some slim chance this was an inspiration for the Joker's appearance.

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You're right on target. According to Bob Kane and others, the Joker was at least partially inspired by Conrad Veidt in THE MAN WHO LAUGHS . . ..

This makes me think of some superhero films. Much of of we've been getting lately would really have been scaled back drastically or even impossible before. The 1978 Superman was just barely able to get by and even that shows the limitations of the day. Spider-Man and Iron Man and Hulk would have been impossible to do before they were done.

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Actually, Spider-Man was done once before. The '70s version with Nicholas Hammond.

Actually, Spider-Man was done once before. The '70s version with Nicholas Hammond.

And it proves your point pretty well.

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Twice, actually. Around the same time, there was a live-action Japanese Spider-Man series (or Supaidaaman) from Toei. It had nothing in common with the original aside from the costume and some of the powers; Japanese Spidey got his powers from aliens from Planet Spider, and he used a giant robot to battle an invading alien army. But it handled the action better than the American show. The shots of Spidey climbing walls were better, using split-screen effects to hide the wires and winches that were sometimes obvious in the US show. The stunts and fights were much better because of the Japanese experience with martial-arts films and shows; Japanese Spidey used a form that I suppose could be called a kind of spider kung-fu, actually moving in a fairly arachnid-like way, and his fights involved a lot of leaping and climbing. In that respect, the Japanese version was a more convincing and authentic Spider-Man than the US version, even if everything else about the show was something totally different.

I love all the old Universal Monster movies, even the later not-so-great ones. My favorite is Wolf Man. Larry Talbot is such a tragic character and Lon Chaney Jr is amazing in the role.

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I'm looking forward to this one. I've got it on order.

I like quite a few older films. I don't judge them strictly by current standards, but more what it seems they were trying to achieve. And some of them still work well even by today's standards. I also like to see things as they began and before they became cliches.

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Standards were no different back then; only technology was different (and styles, of course, but style is style-- neither superior nor inferior). In fact, since the lack of technology required that more effort be put into artistry, an argument could be made that movies of that era are superior to what we have now.

I love those old movies, they are great. I haven't watched them since I was a kid, but I do have to admit they are not easy to watch sometimes. They are clasic for a reason, but I prefer my blood and guts movies. I grew up with Jason; Freddy and Mike, but I have a ton of respect for those older movies. It's not their fault visual effects sucked back then.

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Visual effects did not suck back then. As I mentioned above, the artistry was amazing. Frankenstein does not suffer for lack of CGI any more than van Gogh suffered for lack of Photoshop.

Frankenstein does not suffer for lack of CGI any more than van Gogh suffered for lack of Photoshop.

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Well-said!

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Believe it or not I'd be inclined to say that about quite a few older films. What gets me about the 1933 King Kong isn't the f/x limitations, but rather the ideas behind them, what they were trying to convey. Ditto with something like Forbidden Planet and the 1968 Planet Of The Apes. Then you get to 2001 which effectively says, "screw cgi---lookee what we can do."

I have is the 75th anniversary edition of Frankenstein which includes a number of documentaries. One looks at the emergence and evolution of those early films. It's remarked upon that it's curious these films came out and became popular when they did. It's possible that in some respect they were a distraction from the real trails and horrors many people were dealing with at the time. It's also speculated that in a way these films were a subconscious expression of the horrors faced by survivors of WW1, where thousands of soldiers who would have died of their injuries before now survived but with terrible disfigurations.

Yeah, the 1931 DRACULA has aged very badly--and that's coming from one of the world's biggest vampire freaks. It's an incredibly creaky, stagebound production redeemed by a great cast: not just Lugosi, but also Edward Van Sloan and Dwight Frye.

To be fair, the early Transylvania scenes are nicely creepy and atmospheric, but once Dracula gets to London, the movie turns into the old Balderston-Deane stageplay and gets incredibly static. The whole middle of the movie is pretty much a chamber-room drama, with the characters standing around talking about all the interesting things happening offstage. "Look! Out the window! I just saw a wolf running across the lawn!"

Granted, the Carfax Abbey sets at the ends are pretty cool, and the Renfield's death is nicely staged.

P.S. The 1931 Spanish-language version, which was filmed simultaneously with the Lugosi version, is livelier and arguably better directed. And the actress who plays Lucy wears a much skimpier negligee!

Alas, the guy playing Dracula in the Spanish version is no Lugosi.

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OT, I've started collecting everything that I can get that David Manners appeared in. When we moved to Nova Scotia we found out he spent his summers in the house across the road from ours and our house appears in his novel Convenient Season. If nothing else it makes a neat display in the library and there's some fun flicks there too.

If I may move the genre slightly sideways, I also recommend “Tarzan and his Mate,” which I find amazingly more compelling than the original Weismuller Tarzan film. Plus, ya know, Maureen O'Sullivan has that little nude scene.

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Only it's not her you see swimming nekkid -- she was doubled by Olympic swimming champion Josephine McKim.

Believe it or not I'd be inclined to say that about quite a few older films. What gets me about the 1933 King Kong isn't the f/x limitations, but rather the ideas behind them, what they were trying to convey. Ditto with something like Forbidden Planet and the 1968 Planet Of The Apes. Then you get to 2001 which effectively says, "screw cgi---lookee what we can do."

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I think the special effects in those movies are way, way cooler than the overdone CGI we have these days in movies like "Gi Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and "Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith". When I watch special effects in newer movies like those, I just feel like I'm looking at a computer game.

With those older flicks, the animation and handcrafted puppets/props and screen work may not have been photo realistic, but they had an otherworldly quality that made them mesmerizing and charming. Another good example is the Ray Harryhausen stop motion stuff which was just brilliantly surreal.

I have a lot more appreciation for creatures and surroundings rendered through camera tricks and meticulous puppeteer work than some of the slick, modern computer generated stuff. I get bored when everything I'm looking at just looks like state-of-the-art computer graphics. They may look 'fake', but the made-up creatures and surroundings in movies like the 30s Kong and 2001 sure feel a lot more real and have a physicality that overblown CGI creations can't come close to matching.

I can appreciate well crafted CGI. Still, sometimes I really miss good model work. In terms of science fiction in film to my eye nothing has ever equaled the awe I felt seeing the Enterprise depicted in ST-TMP.